Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello is gearing up to protest at the Irvine, California, headquarters of Taco Bell by performing there on March 5 with his side project, the Nightwatchman. Morello and others will be protesting the restaurant chain's perceived exploitation of farm workers. At the event, Morello will take the stage with the Coup rapper Boots Riley, who will also perform solo ... Meanwhile, Morello's grassroots political organization, Axis of Justice, has scheduled a benefit concert that will take place March 31 in Los Angeles and feature acoustic performances by the Nightwatchman, Riley, System of a Down's Serj Tankian, ex-MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and other special guests. ...

Beyoncé Knowles' little sister Solange has beat her to the altar. The 17-year-old singer/actress married college football player Daniel Smith in the Bahamas last weekend in a ceremony attended by her sister, parents and Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland. "I am excited about this new phase in my life," Solange said in a statement Monday (March 1). "I am very happy and feel truly blessed to have the unconditional love and support of my parents and my entire family." ... If you've got dreams of Diddy, a fancy for 50 or want to be like Wyclef, Diddymite might have your ticket. A hip-hop music and talent school founded by Ms. Dynamite, Diddymite is scheduled to open in England in June, with classes to be held on weekends and holidays for students age 7-19. Despite the name, P. Diddy and Bad Boy have no affiliation with the school. ... Big Tigger, host of BET's "Rap City," will serve as main-event MC in the upcoming boxing video game "Fight Night," due in the spring. Tigger is also a playable character that can be unlocked by virtual pugilists. ...

Former Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson and Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav will be among the artists to play this year's Jammy Awards on March 16 at the Madison Square Garden Theater in New York. Other artists scheduled to perform include Slick Rick, Dr. John, Dickey Betts, Gov't Mule, Soulive, the Disco Biscuits and the String Cheese Incident. Awards will be handed out between artist jams. Voting is open to the public at jammys.com, jambands.com and relix.com. ... Jet will join the Who, David Bowie and others at this year's Isle of Wight festival, which will take place June 11 to 13 at Seaclose Park in Newport, England. Other acts on the bill include British Sea Power, Snow Patrol, Groove Armada, the Electric Soft Parade, the Manic Street Preachers and the Charlatans UK. ...

Randy Rhoads, former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, is being inducted posthumously into Hollywood's Rockwalk, the sidewalk gallery on Sunset Boulevard. His induction takes place March 18 at 1 p.m. and is open to the public. ... Mötley Crüe's Vince Neil, who lost his daughter Skylar in 1995 to stomach cancer, is holding his annual charity golf tournament in her name on May 6 in Malibu, California. Proceeds benefit the Skylar Neil Memorial Foundation, which donates funds to organizations that help children suffering with cancer, AIDS, Down Syndrome and leukemia. ...

Morrissey's first studio album in seven years, You Are the Quarry, is set to drop May 18. The former Smiths frontman worked with producer Jerry Finn (Blink-182, AFI) on the project. ... Gary Jules, who recently scored the #1 single in Britain with a cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," has set a March 23 release date for his latest album, Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets. The Los Angeles singer/songwriter will promote the record with an eight-city tour including a March 19 show at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. …

02.27.2004

Michael Jackson has had another run-in with the law — this time for wearing a ski mask and worrying store officials. The pop star entered a Wal-Mart in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Tuesday morning with his head covered, accompanied by another man with a hat pulled down over his eyes, and when he was asked to remove the mask by managers, he refused. Police were called, but the two men had left the store by the time officers arrived. Police later pulled over their black SUV, at which point Jackson removed the mask. Officers described it as a routine call. ...

Pharrell Williams has decided to give acting a try — and no, we're not just talking about his direct-to-DVD flick, "Dude, We're Going to Rio," which hits stores Tuesday. He's signed on to work on a short indie film titled "The Ecology of Love," which should hit the film-festival circuit this summer. ...

Like he did with his last album, David Banner will release a "Chopped & Screwed" version of his most recent full-length, MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water. It'll be out in stores on March 23. Universal Records has had such a good response to these slowed-down remix albums that it plans to issue "Chopped & Screwed" versions of all its major Southern hip-hop releases, including LPs from the Big Tymers and Lil' Wayne. ... Thanks to a back catalog that sold like hotcakes last year, not to mention the 1.5 million copies of St. Anger picked up by fans, Metallica are hanging with the big boys (and girls) at #5 on Rolling Stone's list of the top moneymaking musicians of 2003. Metallica's $39.1 million puts them behind leaders the Rolling Stones ($84.1 million), Bruce Springsteen ($81.7 million), Eagles ($62.9 million) and the Dixie Chicks ($39.8 million). Further down the list are Robbie Williams, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Dave Matthews. ...

Continuing to support their third album, Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains of Wayne have lined up a spring tour of the U.S. Following the conclusion of a two-week European jaunt on March 10 in Madrid, Spain, the power-pop quartet will launch a brief string of dates beginning April 22 at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. ... Wu-Tang Clan headmaster RZA will release a live performance DVD, "The RZA Live in Germany," on April 13. That's the same day the second installment of "Kill Bill," which RZA scored for director Quentin Tarantino, hits theaters. ...

Jadakiss was previously scheduled to appear as himself in a February 16 episode of "Eve," in which Eve's character, Shelly, enlists his help to get her friends into a club; the episode will now air March 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET on UPN. ... Dax Shepard from MTV's "Punk'd" is trying his hand at acting. Shepard appears on Friday's (February 27) episode of "Life With Bonnie" as a young commercial director who is looking for something other than the title character's wholesome image to sell soup, the product she's set to endorse. The episode airs 9:30 p.m. ET on ABC. ...

Classic rocker Eric Clapton will present the three-day celebration Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas' Fair Park from June 4-6. The charity event will begin with guitar seminars and showcases, and will end with an all-star jam at Cotton Bowl Stadium, which will feature Clapton, Buddy Guy, Eric Johnson, B.B. King, Brian May, Steve Vai and many others. Proceeds will to go the Crossroads Centre, an addiction treatment center founded by Clapton in 1997. ... The artists of indie-rap label Def Jux will embark on a six-week tour starting March 21 in the label's hometown of New York. Aesop Rock, RJD2, Mr. Lif and a half dozen others will tour the country in support of Definitive Jux Presents III, a compilation album of music from the label due out March 23. The road trip wraps up May 1 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

Jewel has extended her tour through June, when she will play a series of dates on the West Coast. The tour launches on March 11 in Bozeman, Montana, and now runs through June 21 in Bend, Oregon. Jewel continues to tour for her 2003 album, 0304, which hit shelves last June. On March 23, she will release the live DVD "Live at Humphrey's by the Bay," which was recorded during her 2001 tour. ...

• Audioslave
• Solange
• Jet
• Slick Rick
• Randy Rhoads

Britney Spears spent her holiday vacation in Los Angeles shooting the video for "Toxic," her second single from In the Zone. Helmed by Joseph Kahn, who last directed Spears in her clip for "Stronger," the video premieres on "Making the Video" on January 13 at 6:30 p.m. ET. ...

Police in Gwinnett County, Georgia, say they have paternity-test results that prove New Orleans rapper Juvenile is the father of the 6-month-old girl in the middle of a dispute over child-support payments. Deputies say Juvenile failed to make payments to the child's mother, and obtained an arrest warrant for the rapper in November. Juvenile continues to deny that he is the baby's father. ... While the dispute has yet to be played out in court, a federal judge in Los Angeles has allowed Wind-Up Records to continue selling copies of 3 Sides by Bob Guiney, better known as "Bob the Bachelor" from TV's "The Bachelor." Earlier this month, the program's producers sued Guiney and his record label for breach of contract for promoting his album without their permission. Since its November 25 release, 3 Sides has sold fewer than 50,000 copies, according to SoundScan. ...

3 Doors Down will stage a benefit concert March 27 in Mobile, Alabama, to aid children's charities along the Gulf Coast. ... On March 18, a day before the 22nd anniversary of the plane crash that claimed his life, famed Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads will be inducted into Hollywood's Rock Walk of Fame. Renowned for his blending of metal distortion with complex classical structures, Rhoads ignited Osbourne's solo albums Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). ...

The Who's Pete Townshend has told a British newspaper that when he was being investigated in January on child-pornography charges, he considered suicide. "If I had a gun I would have shot myself," he told The Observer for a story that was printed Sunday. In the end, police didn't charge Townshend because there was no evidence to indicate he had downloaded any of the images he viewed on his computer. The guitarist said he had viewed the pictures because he was conducting research for his autobiography, and thought the photos might trigger blocked memories from his childhood. "I was just spinning, it was a bit like being shot. I didn't really quite know what to do," Townshend said of his mental state during the investigation. "If I had shot myself, it would have been awful because it would have confirmed what everybody thought." ...

Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir will undergo back surgery for an injury he sustained six weeks ago on the first date of the Eastpak Resistance Tour. Though he was in pain, he finished the scheduled concerts. Then, on December 13, his foot went numb, which he took as a sign to see a doctor. "It will be a while before I'll be able to [get back in the studio,]" Muir wrote on the band's Web site. "Hopefully all will go well with the surgery, and I'll be able to get back to the music as soon as possible." ... Helmet's hits collection, Unsung: The Best of Helmet (1991-1997), will see release on January 27. ...

Following in Alanis Morissette's footsteps, Steve Earle is taking on a starring role in the off-Broadway play "The Exonerated," starting Monday (December 29). The play tells the stories of former death-row prisoners who were later freed by the state after being found innocent. Earle performs in the play, housed at the Culture Project in New York, through Sunday. ... El-P will release High Water (Mark), a collaboration album with the Blue Series Continuum jazz quintet, on February 17. "The music on this album came from one day's live session in which I brought in compositions that the Blue Series guys improvised to," El-P explained in a statement. "I then took the results of that and reworked them into structured songs." ...

12.24.03

They don't call him the Boss for nothing. Bruce Springsteen was the touring champion this year, pulling in almost $116 million from 47 shows, concert industry magazine Pollstar reported in its year-end sales data. Springsteen's single-year figures were the second highest of all time; in 1994 the Rolling Stones brought in $121.2 million. This year the veteran rockers took in $38.5 million, earning them a #14 ranking. ...

Don Was, who has produced albums by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Black Crowes and the B-52's, has formed a TV and home video production company called M101. The first project from the company is the high-definition television series "Music Room," which will feature music legends performing with contemporary artists. In the two-hour pilot, "Music 101: The Green Room," Al Green will be joined by Mary J. Blige and Hall & Oates, among others. There is no launch date for the series. ... Fu Manchu will record the theme song for the upcoming Jesse James movie "West Coast Choppers," singer/guitarist Scott Hill wrote on the band's Web site. The track will be called "I'm Gettin' Away (Away From It All)." Five of the band's previously released songs will also be featured on the soundtrack. ...

The Recording Academy will present lifetime achievement awards to a number of musicians at the 2004 Grammys. Classical pianist Van Cliburn, Motown sound architects the Funk Brothers, children's music composer Ella Jenkins, bebop tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, swing band leader Artie Shaw, and folk guitarist and songwriter Doc Watson will all be honored. Also receiving lifetime achievement awards: jazz producer Orrin Keepnews, radio host Marian McPartland, and songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. ... Clearly smitten with Redman and Method Man's thespian skills, FOX has picked up an as-yet-untitled television show starring the two rappers. The sitcom features Red and Meth as themselves, living in a white suburb of New Jersey. The show was based on an idea from Method Man. ...

Tommy Hill, a.k.a. John Wilson, of rap group the RAM Squad was arrested Tuesday evening and charged with drug dealing and possession after his Philadelphia home was raided by police. Authorities believe Wilson sold drugs out of his home and through dealers in the Richard Allen Homes projects, which the RAM Squad got their name from (the Richard Allen Mob). Wilson is also thought to have ties to Philly mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino. ... Factory 81 have broken up following the departure of bassist Kevin Lewis and drummer Andy Cyrulnik. The hardcore metal outfit's only album, Mankind, came out in 2000. ...

• Britney Spears
• Juvenile
• 3 Doors Down
• Randy Rhoads